CES: 'Connected' Ford redefines 'the driving experience'

LAS VEGAS — While in Washington, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood accelerates his campaign to crack down on "distracted driving," the Ford Motor Co., in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), was busy announcing a wave of "connected car" innovations and developments that seem destined to drive drivers to distraction.

Consumer Electronics Association chief Gary Shapiro (left) with Alan Mullaly, CEO of Ford Motor Co.

However, according to a series of Ford executives speaking at a CES keynote session Thursday (Jan. 7), these additions to on-board information, communication and entertainment are being designed into new-model Fords and Lincolns with a laser-like focus on being "simpler, safer and smarter," actually lessening the problem of driver distraction.

Keynote speaker Alan Mullaly, CEO of Ford, emphasized that the flood of new connected features scheduled to sweep across Ford dashboards will be controlled largely by the driver's voice.

In one example, he showed a driver trying to choose a song on a handheld music device and taking more than 30 seconds to do so, looking repeatedly away from the road. The driver did the same function by voice in 4.9 seconds, using Ford's on-board SYNC infotainment system.

Doug Van Dagens, Ford's director of connected services, stressed that the expanding SYNC-based menu of connected-car features is being developed with safety foremost. Each driver will be able, he said, "to keep his phone in his pocket, his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road."

But Mulally made it clear that Ford intends to differentiate itself from competitors by "loading" its dashboard with features that are "versatile and easy to personalize."

Derrick Kuzak, Ford's chief of global product development, described this goal as "re-defining the driving experience beyond mere transportation."

Immersed in sounds, sights and information, he said, "Drivers will find the experience so rich that they refuse to give it up."

Waxing lyrical, Jim Buczkowski, a key engineer involved in re-designing the Ford user interface, referred to driving the Ford of the near future as an "all new interior experience" that can escalate into a "total sensory experience," including audio enhancement that result in "the perfect listening experience."

Going Buczkowski one better, Kuzak said Ford had "created an experience that brings together all the customer's favorite devices and services in one place."

Among additions to the driving experience, according to Ford's CES tag team of executives, are the familiar elements of radio, CD and MP3 players, but also a capacity to record and play back up to 45 minutes of Sirius satellite radio and an option to tag and save songs for later transfer to iPod, iPhone and similar devices.

Also coming to Ford connected cars will be Twitter, Pandora online entertainment radio and Stitcher online news radio, plus instant access to traffic information, vehicle health reports, weather reports, sports news, stock quotes, movie listings, directions both visual and verbal (including a new Ford partnership with MapQuest) and even horoscopes. Features also include Google and WiFi, but accessible "Mullaly noted "only when the car is in "Park."

User interface design engineer Jason Johnson went to considerable effort to explain how simple it will be for drivers to manipulate these multiple media while never directing their attention away from the road.

He demonstrated a five-way game-style controller embedded in the steering wheel linked to a touch-screen console in the mid-car control stack, using LCD screens "logically organized," color-coded for easy reference and programmed to recognize each driver's voice and personalize information accordingly.

If this "load" of features, despite Ford's good intentions and the typical driver's mastery of GUI, TUI and VUI, does divert a driver's concentration ever so briefly, Mulally also pointed out the ultimate connected-car feature. Future Fords will all have a built-in link to 911 assistance, in case the car somehow still slips off-course and comes a cropper.